SEO in Polish: Why Translation Alone Isn’t Enough

“Ego isn’t always bad. It’s your sense of self-worth. It helps you defend your needs, take pride in your work, and protect your identity. But when it goes unchecked, it becomes a barrier.”

“Let’s just translate our website into Polish and start conquering the market. Our product will speak for itself,” a CEO once declared in a strategy meeting.
“We dominate in the Netherlands, so winning in Poland will be easy,” the marketing manager chimed in.

Hold your horses, gentlemen, I thought. Just because you know the theory of climbing Everest doesn’t mean you’ll reach the summit. Expanding with a “minimum plan” and the belief that “it worked once, it’ll work again” is the fastest way to get lost in the mountains.

Polish e-commerce is already worth $24.8B (2025) and is growing faster than the EU average. But dropping your content into Google Translate (or even DeepL) won’t get you far. Poland has its own language, habits, and expectations. SEO in Polish follows its own rules — and ignoring them comes at a cost.

1. Who’s asking, and how?

SEO always starts with intent. Google is like a bottomless wishing well - people throw in millions of queries every day. Your job is to know what they’ll type and how they’ll phrase it, before they do.

Dutch and Polish consumers often look for the same things… but the way they search is completely different. Because language is alive. It’s shaped by history, culture, and everyday quirks.

Photo by Josh Kahen on Unsplash

🔎 Example: In Dutch, diminutives are everywhere - kleedje, handdoekje, kastje. Perfectly natural, and effective in search. In Polish, though, “dywanik” (little rug), “ręczniczek” (little towel), or “szafeczka” (little cabinet) sound childish and out of place. Poles want straightforward, grown-up words.

SEO is about intent. That’s why one-to-one translation doesn’t cut it. You need keyword research built from scratch, based on Polish data and search behavior.

2. Trust signals - without them, no sale

Every market has its rituals. In the Netherlands, you can’t run a store without iDEAL, the promise “ vandaag besteld, morgen in huis”, and a section full of korting op=op (clearance deals).

In Poland? If you want to sell, you need to check these boxes:

• instant payments (Przelewy24, Blik),

• “cash on delivery” option (still popular!),

• free returns,

• a Polish phone number (ideally with a helpline),

• a local warehouse address,

• and… presence on Allegro, Poland’s biggest marketplace.

Skip these, and trust evaporates - even if your price looks attractive.

3. Content that sounds human

When localizing a Dutch online store for Poland, we ran user tests. One Polish customer told me bluntly: “Ma’am, I’ve read this three times and still don’t get it. Was this written by a person or a monkey?”

That was the wake-up call. The content was technically translated but read awkwardly and confused users. After rewriting the product descriptions in plain, natural Polish, conversion rates jumped +30% in just two months.

📌 Lesson? Translation alone isn’t enough. Polish customers spot unnatural language instantly. That’s why SEO in Polish also means UX writing - headlines, CTAs, and microcopy written the way people actually speak.

4. Competition doesn’t sleep

Poland is one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in Europe. Translation: competition is fierce, you snooze you lose.

I’ve seen the same scenario play out again and again:

• A store thrives in the Netherlands or Germany.

• They enter Poland with an English-only site.

• The result? Low trust, low conversions.

Polish shoppers often respond with: “No Polish payments, doesn’t look trustworthy. I’d rather buy from a smaller, but fully Polish, store.”

📊 Research confirms it: ~80% of Polish internet users shop online, but most choose brands that speak their language and offer local solutions (Blik, free returns, Allegro).

The takeaway? An English-only store in Poland feels like a tourist passing through. Even a smaller, fully localized brand earns more trust - and more sales.

Conclusion

Entering Poland with a “translated” website is like trying to have a deep conversation using hand gestures - technically possible, but awkward, clumsy, and far from trust-building.

Polish customers expect brands to speak their language: show familiar payment methods, offer easy returns, and use content that actually makes sense. That’s the real difference between translation and localization.

SEO in Polish isn’t about tricks. It’s about empathy and understanding the market. That’s why it’s not a cost - it’s an investment in visibility, conversions, and real business growth.

👉 So here’s the question: does your website in Polish actually sound like it was written by a Pole? If you have any doubts, I can check it out!